


Bhojana

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Category: Jodhaa-Akbar (2008)
Genre: Awkward Family Dinners, Canon Compliant, F/M, Family Dinners, Gen, Mutual Pining, Oneshot, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 14:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17045765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Jalal, Jodhaa, Maham Anga, and Adham Khan all get together for a private family dinner to get to know one another better. It goes about as well as you’d expect.





	Bhojana

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellabaloo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellabaloo/gifts).



> Title means “dinner” in Sanskrit. Set during second half of “Jashn E Bahaara He”, between the Pir feast and Hamida’s departure.

Jodhaa is flicking grain into Shah and Shurukh’s cage, as they flap desperately against the bars for freedom, when Salima arrives.

“A message for the Empress,” she murmurs to Neelakshi, who nods back. “I will call the Princess.”

Salima frowns in brief confusion, and Neelakshi hastily explains: Jodhaa has asked her personal maids -- Neelakshi, Madhavi, and the others she brought from home -- to still call her Princess in private, out of deference to their collective homesickness, for a simpler time.

Salima is not sure what to say to that, and moves on to her message. The Emperor has invited her to dine that evening with Maham Anga and his brother, Adham Khan. Not another feast, but a more informal, intimate occasion to get to know his family better.

Jodhaa agrees automatically, but unease swirls within her. He means well, of course, but when she recalls what passed between her and Maham Anga on the day of the last meal they shared together --

 _I could tell him_ , she thinks with a leap of daring.

But for all that the iciness between them has thawed into smiles and contented ease, she knows their relationship is not yet strong enough to test it that far.

She would not want to drive a wedge between him and the adoptive mother he so clearly cherishes.

It surprises her that she even cares what he might think, but then she had walked around the fire seven times the way soldiers walk to their death -- with no real hope for the future, other than not dishonoring her family. Life tied to a Mughal, even if she was able to bring her faith with her, had seemed worse than death. She’d taken the vial and the letter as back-up measures

They are still there, in the bottom of her trunk, and on dark days she thinks about them.

But then he had said he valued her feelings -- her _feelings_ \-- and refused to touch her, and he had not reneged on any of his promises, and suddenly, her future had seemed like something other than a great dark whirling vortex.

She still yearns for home with an acute keening agony, but she not only accepts his gestures, but also tries to reciprocate with her own, and it is not merely out of survival instinct or the necessity of being an Empress. She finds herself looking forward to his smiles, to his measured stride, to his questions, to him being there every morning when she turns around after performing her _puja._

And for him, she will put up with his beloved Badi Ami and her son.

* * *

Steam curls up from the bowls, and Maham Anga’s face wavers like a mirage across the low table. She determinedly avoids Jodhaa’s eyes, and for the thousandth time, Jodhaa wishes she could figure out how to propitiate her mother-in-law.

As a girl in Amer, she was taught how to serve her future mother-in-law, of course, but she expected that woman to be the Dowager Queen of Ajabgarh. There was no time in the brief limbo during which her destiny swerved from Ajabgarh to Agra to reeducate herself, and she rather suspects that the skills she learned will not work with a Muslim stepmother-in-law.

But Maham Anga seems to have backed down, and is content to ignore her, with no more hissed warnings or snide allusions.

 _She knows her Jalal cares for me_ , Jodhaa thinks with a burst of shameless cherishment, _and wants him to be happy._

Her mother had said, when Jodhaa had worried whether or not her future mother-in-law would like her: _Be a good wife and queen to your husband, and eventually her son’s happiness will become her own._

At least some things must be universal.

Maham Anga might be set on ignoring her, but her son, on the other hand, seems to be talking twice as much to make up for her.

The man makes Jodhaa’s skin crawl; she remembers the fight between him and her husband, and the stories of his atrocities in Malwa. But he is her husband’s elder brother and she will have to deal with him.

( _Only his foster brother_ , she thinks scornfully -- but Sujamal Bhaisa is her foster brother, and the best man she has ever known.)

“Where were you during morning swordfighting last week?” Adham says through a mouthful. “You never skip a day, and aren’t you the one who always says every day you don’t practice is a day you get worse? Your men wondered where you were.”

“I decided to practice by myself,” is all her husband says, his tone curtly evasive.

Jodhaa’s eyes are firmly trained on the platter before her, realization heating her face up. She cannot rely on the gauze of her veil to obscure her blush, since they are in private and she is bare-faced. Adham must see it, because his next words are, “My royal sister-in-law, you graced us all with a fine performance the other day during court negotiations, and I must compliment the -- ah, what was it you were singing?

“A _bhajan_.”

“Oh yes, it was quite lovely. Will you one day teach your children to sing _bhajans_?”

He mangles the last word, and Jodhaa closes her eyes at the brief, painful stab to her heart at the obvious answer.

Her children will be Muslim.

She will strive to pass on what she knows, but their father’s beliefs will take precedence, and they will grow up in a Mughal world. There will be no _pujas_ for them, no _rakhis_ for her daughters to tie around their brothers’ wrists, no _mantras_ and _bhajans_ for her to whisper into their ears.

 _Compromise_ , her mother had taught her, even when she expected to marry Ratan Singh and rule over no more than a Rajput city-state, much less the Empire of India. _Graciousness and gestures_.

“Certainly they will learn _bhajans_ ,” Jodhaa says, unruffled. “I also hope to teach them nasheeds and qawwalis. I was quite entranced by the Sufis’ song on our wedding, and I am told it was a qawwali.”

That she spent a good portion of the performance weeping is immaterial. She had asked her native ladies, Salima and Iram, what the Mughal world had to offer in terms of music -- both for her own curiosity, and because she knew it was the least she could do for her husband. He had done his research, as she could see in how he commissioned the best builders for her temple and took off his shoes before entering her prayer room, and how he was not disgusted but instead intrigued by her daily rituals.

She owes it to him to return the favor

“Ah,” says Adham, “If there _are_ any children. When will they come?”

Her stomach twists.

Her husband speaks up. “They will come when Allah wills them.”

Adham affects awe. “I did not realize that Allah was the Empress herself.”

Jodhaa feels just as she did in the kitchen: small, breathless, and helpless.

Her husband draws himself up to his fullest height. “And why should she not be?”

Silence.

He dusts his hands of crumbs and jerks his hand for a servant to hand him a glass of water. “The Prime Minister just sent in his latest report on Malwa. Shall we discuss it now, over dinner?”

That shuts Adham up for the rest of the meal.

Part of Jodhaa knows she should be grateful to her husband, and she is thankful for his presence, a strong sturdy pillar besides her, but the other half of her that is still a Princess of Amer seethes and stings. Just how much does her husband tell his family about what happens between them?

* * *

She is still -- not quite fuming after dinner. She used to fume about what fate had dealt her, when the messengers from Agra first came, but of late she has found that she is no longer shaking with rage when it comes to her husband.

She is humiliated enough, however, that she seeks out Neelakshi for a private talk.

“I did not realize it was a Mughal tradition to tell your mother -- and your brother as well, apparently -- what happens on your wedding night.”

“There is no such thing as privacy in any royal court,” Neelakshi points out fairly. “And it’s hardly a secret about your wedding night when the Emperor left the tent after barely twenty minutes.”

There is an edge of disapproval in her voice, and Jodhaa knows that even Neelakshi is shocked at the magnitude of concessions she has demanded from the Emperor. A woman insisting on retaining her faith is scandalous, but forgivable. Refusing his touch is a defiance of her very existence as a woman, so appalling that even her own family has shaken their heads at her.

“It would have been like this in Ajabgarh as well.”

_But then I never would have refused the Prince Ratan Singh from my bed. Even if I never came to love him, I would have at least been able to respect and trust him from the start, for he also revered the same Kanha._

Jodhaa presses her lips together, and dismisses Neelakshi to mire herself in her eternal doubts. She no longer fears the Mughal Emperor, but nor has she forgotten the gulf between their faiths. The limbo frustrates her, and part of her thinks that she could simply submit to him, silence the cacophony ringing in her ears. Stop waiting for the moment when her heart catches up with her mind, and sublimate all her Rajput spirit into her duty as a wife. It would be so much simpler in a way.

But she doesn’t know how to play this game.

The truth is, when she demanded to keep her religion, and again demanded the sanctity of her body, she had been expecting him to deny her. She could not outright refuse the marriage alliance, could not do that to her father, so she had hoped the Emperor would do her dirty work for her. But he had done the exact opposite, and without knowing it, he had initiated a new game.

And she is going to play it, Jodhaa realizes, exhaling with a long sigh.

Not just because survival demands it, but because she wants to.

Neelakshi tears back the curtain to Jodhaa’s bedchamber. “He’s outside, asking to take a walk with you!”

A walk?

They go on afternoon walks, but after dark, they stay in their separate rooms. Nighttime is a realm neither of them have the courage yet to cross into. The humiliation of dinner still stings, but he is outside her rooms-- hair mussed, in loose sleeping clothes -- and she cannot refuse him.

She almost asks Neelakshi to chaperone them, but she catches herself and laughs at her own folly. They are _married_. They do not need a chaperone.

They set off across the darkened courtyard, where in the daylight hours she unleash the rabbits to reign terror on her innocent ladies. They walk for a while, a good twenty or thirty paces before he finally speaks, in a surprisingly gentle voice, “I am sorry he said such things.”

Her husband sighs.

“Some days I think I ought to send him to Mecca on hajj. It’s only not to break Badi Ami’s heart that I content myself with reprimanding him.”

“Is it not a great honor to go on pilgrimage to Mecca?” Jodhaa asks, uncertainly. “The journey of a lifetime…”

He smiles unpleasantly. “In theory, yes. But in all practicality, it’s no more than an honorable way of exiling someone. It is convenient: get an enemy out of the way without killing him and also doing some good for Allah in the process, so he cannot protest. But everyone knows it is exile. Everyone.”

What a world, Jodhaa thinks irritatedly, where exile can be no more than pilgrimage, when her Hindu subjects must pay taxes to avail of the same privilege under this new regime. But she knows to keep her mouth shut.

“And Adham remembers very well that it happened to Bairam Khan. Partially at his instigation.”

“Your old regent,” Jodhaa says. “I had heard of his… dedication to the Mughal Cause.”

His ferocity had been the stuff of her and her siblings’ nightmares as children. Reneging on promised treaties, beheading the kings and even the children and infants of royal families, salting and burning farmland… But how had such a man so devoted to the Mughal Empire been exiled?

Jalal waves the topic away, instead coming back to Adham, as though he is desperate to ensure she does not fear him. “Never mind _anything_ my lout of a brother says. Our children will have _your_ faith as well as mine, and be raised in both.”

It is a fine promise, but the expectations behind the words -- that there _will_ be children --

She is -- could learn to be happy, in time, but --

She closes her eyes. He has never demanded anything of her, and she has nothing to fear.

“Adham will simply have to learn to hold his tongue. He _will_ learn in time,” and here Jodhaa has to turn to look at her husband, his voice as sonorous and as imperial as she has heard it during his court sessions. “He will learn, when he sees that bringing other faiths into the fold of the Mughal Empire will help us consolidate Hindustan.”

His voice drops an octave, as he looks at her, his eyes impossibly soft. “I am glad that you did so — your example has brought many under my banner.”

The heat of his gaze compels her to look down, and he glances back, as though embarrassed by his impassioned outburst.

“Many would rather it were otherwise,” Jodhaa says vaguely.

She hears him turning to look at her again, so sharply he must crick his neck, and she reaches to take his hand. _And I am not one of them_ she says silently, with the lacing of her fingers through his, with the caress of her thumb over his wrist.

She lets go, but the warmth lingers.

“Many people feel many things,” her husband says.

“Bairam Khan would have been one of them,” says Jodhaa. Now that he has mentioned him, she wants to know more about this regent, whom she always feared at a distance but can now learn about firsthand.

Jalal’s face grows wistful. “He was dedicated. Almost too dedicated. I had to contain him before he consumed the realm.”

There is raw pain in his voice, and belatedly Jodhaa remembers that Bairam Khan was killed while en route to Mecca last year. She curses herself for her misstep, but her husband continues to talk, voice steady.

“He had forgotten whose head wore the crown, and I had to take control of my empire. I had known I would have to do so, ever since when I was a boy of 13 and he beheaded King Hemu in my name.”

So he hadn’t killed the usurper himself? Jodhaa finds herself startled. She had wept when she heard of it, convinced that the Mughals were nothing more than barbarians. Is her husband lying? But why would he do so to her?

King Hemu had been just the first in a long line of kings fell under his sword -- or rather, Bairam Khan’s sword. Cocooned away in Amer, she had thought there was little distinction between whether it was the Emperor or the Regent who made those decisions; all Mughals seemed the same, all of them faceless harkenings of destruction. But when she has lived for months under the same roof as this man, and seen him play with the rabbits, and heard him take up on behalf of his Hindu subjects, and experienced his tenderness firsthand, the difference suddenly seems magnified a hundred times in importance.

“It wasn’t until we rode against Mankeshwar that I could finally stand up to him.”

“But why Mankeshwar? What was so different about Mankeshwar?” Accusation sharpens her tone, without realizing it, but when she has heard of so many other kingdoms drowned in blood, she puzzles over why it took so long to stop, and what made Mankeshwar the end of the line.

“I cannot simply defy my Regent like _that_ ,” her husband tries to explain. “It took time, to win the soldiers’ loyalty, to prove myself in their eyes so that they were my men and not his. By the time we reached Mankeshwar, I had enough behind me to take control of my empire. I was able to save the King and send Khan Baba to Mecca without incident.”

And how neatly he had done it too -- saving a captive’s life and at the same time sparing his old mentor’s life. It is harder to think of her husband as a Mughal tyrant when she remembers that he is scarcely a year older than her. Until not too long ago, he was still a child, under the thumb of his Regent, and he had to wrest back control, even if it cost him everything.

And one of his first independent decisions was to marry her.

Just as Jodhaa snatched back what choices she could, when it seemed that they had all been taken away from her.

“Manhood is taken, not granted.” Jodhaa says out loud. “I suppose the same is true of crowns — whether an Emperor’s or a King’s. Just like—“”

Just like Sujamal Bhaisa used to say. In the late hours of the night, ranting to Jodhaa, the only person who ever believed that he had a right to Amer’s throne. Sujamal, who rides about like a vagabond dancing the line between rebellion and treason to regain his crown.

“Just as elder brothers need to be put in their place, by force if necessary,” her husband says, smiling.

He means to amuse her, but Jodhaa suddenly finds herself sick.

“Did you ever face the same with your brothers?” he asks.

“They are far away from Agra, where they no longer have any control over me.” She regrets the sharp tone and his resulting hurt look, when he has only been trying to draw a laugh out of her.

 _I could tell him about Bhaisa,_ she thinks. _He cares about justice and stability in his realm, more so than anyone else I’ve ever known, and he might take up his cause._

But the Emperor might also view her brother-cousin as no more than a thief seeking to steal a crown.

She tries to soften her retort, and turn the conversation away from her family at the same time. “And I find myself glad of it sometimes, to discover who I might be without them circling around me.”

Her husband’s face relaxes immediately, and she wonders that she can affect him so, that her words mean so much to him. It emboldens her to say her next words. “Perhaps sending Adham to Mecca will do him a world of good, so that he might learn you are no puppet who does others’ bidding.”

Her husband throws his head back and laughs. It’s an open, full-throated laugh and she feels a thrill at eliciting such a laugh from him.

“I find myself more and more tempted these days,” he admits.

“Princess!” Neelakshi calls.

Jodhaa blinks, as though surfacing from a lake. She turns to see her closest maid running across the dark courtyard, doing a hasty _salaam_ in the Emperor’s direction.

“I hadn’t heard from you in so long, and I was worried!”

Jodhaa blinks again, and it is only now that she realizes that they have circled the courtyard three times, and her feet are aching.

“You needn’t have worried,” she chides. “My husband was with me.”

“Ah,” Neelakshi says. “I _see_.”

Jodhaa shakes her head and bows in goodnight to her husband, who reciprocates the gesture.

“How was your walk, Princess?” Neelakshi asks as they return to the women’s quarters, and _oh_ if her voice isn’t so unbearably smug.

Jodhaa raises her chin. “I have a new order. From now on, you are to address me as Empress, not Princess.”

“Even when it is just us?”

“Of course. I am the Empress of India now, not the Princess of Amer, and I see no reason why I should not be proud to own that title.”

“Very well then, _Mallika-E-Hindustan,_ your bedchamber awaits you.”

Jodhaa swats her favorite maid across the head, necessitating Neelakshi to retaliate, and in the ensuing struggle, they break into peals of laughter. Out of deference to the quiet in the rest of the women’s quarters, they quickly smother them, but a smile lingers on Jodhaa’s lips long after she has blown out the candles.

**Author's Note:**

> Hemu is the first king whom smol!Jalal doesn’t want to behead, and the King of Mankeshwar is the second king who Hrithik!Jalal saves.


End file.
